Word: co2
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...long-awaited "endangerment finding," formally declaring that carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gases are pollutants that threaten public health and welfare. Under the Clean Air Act, that finding means that the EPA has a responsibility to address the damage caused by greenhouse gases, possibly through direct regulation of CO2 - just as it regulates other air pollutants, like acid rain-causing sulfur dioxide. (See the top 10 green ideas...
...environmental regulation in U.S. history. The EPA's finding triggers a 60-day public-comment period before any proposed regulations could be announced, and most observers expect it would take months, if not years, for the EPA to produce rules that could control the 7.3 billion metric tons of CO2 the U.S. produces, from sources that range from giant power plants to planes and cars. The initial regulations would likely center on emissions from motor vehicles - the cause behind the 2007 Supreme Court case that originally spurred the endangerment finding. (In the case, Massachusetts v. EPA, the court found that...
...higher levels of atmospheric CO2 that would likely be seen in a warmer future won't make much of a difference either - if the pine needles' pores are closed to prevent water loss, CO2 simply won't get in. Even more worrisome, the PNAS study doesn't take into account possible changes in precipitation patterns in a warmer future, which many climate models say could be drier, exacerbating the impacts of higher temperatures. "We can envision the landscape getting hammered over and over again," says Breshears...
...widespread increase in tree mortality rates in the western U.S., thanks in part to regional warming trends and growing water scarcity. Another study published last month, also in Science, found that even the seemingly limitless Amazon rainforest could be highly vulnerable to drought. And since living trees suck up CO2 from the atmosphere, massive tree mortality due to warming could produce a feedback effect, further intensifying climate change. In the end, we might need a bigger Biosphere 2, because we're on track to screw up Biosphere 1 - otherwise known as the Earth...
...York's transit struggles are a reminder that even the biggest city in the U.S. can't fully control its environmental destiny. That's true for climate change too; even if New York meets its laudable CO2-reduction goals, that alone will do little to stop global warming. But the city is ensuring that it will be ready for a warmer world. The Bloomberg administration began by creating a homegrown version of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Those scientists reported that by the end of the century, annual mean temperatures in New York City could increase 7.5ºF...